


Melting it all away

by MagnetoTheMagnificent



Series: Summer Omens [6]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Has PTSD (Good Omens), Crowley has Trauma from the Fall (Good Omens), Dissociation, Flashbacks, Mental Health Issues, Other, Scene: The Bookshop Fire (Good Omens), Traumatized Crowley (Good Omens), Worried Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:35:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25672915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagnetoTheMagnificent/pseuds/MagnetoTheMagnificent
Summary: A candle triggers Crowley's trauma, and he's faced with all the times a fire destroyed him. Written for @thetunewillcome's promt 'Melting.'
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Summer Omens [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1845238
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	Melting it all away

Crowley had felt it creep up on him since the waiter lit the tall, elegant candle in the centre of the table he and Aziraphale shared. The numb, uncontrollable feeling of terror and nothingness gripped at his mind as the flame flickered across his serpentine eyes. He watched the wax melt in rivulets down the base of the candle, as if hypnotized. 

**Drip**

_Burning flesh, burning feathers. Everything burning. He was burning. He was drowning and burning at the same time. Falling, Fallen, further into the pit of sulfur. He thrashed, feeling his destroyed wings flail uselessly against the searing tar, and then fall limp, dead, useless.  
Black tar, black ink, something had been written. He couldn’t remember, someone’s sake, he couldn’t remember. He had fallen, and he had forgotten. He had fallen, but from where? _

__

__

_“What’s your name?” someone asks._

_“I don’t know! I don’t remember!”_

_“Look at you squirm and crawl at my feet, little one. I think I’ll call you Crawly.”_

**Drip**

_Burning tar, burning rubber. Everything burning, but for all of Heaven and Hell, he would. not. burn. He was choking on the toxic air of burned plastic and fabric and metal. He would not stop, he would not burn. He has to sit, he has to sit in the flames, he has to drive through the inferno. They’re counting on him, he has to drive the flames. He will not burn._

**Drip**

_Burning wood, burning books. Everything burning, everything- the bookshop, all the knowledge, all the books. Everything he had created in a past life. Gone, up in flames. He’s alone, he’s burning, he’s lost, he screams but no one hears. He falls, falls, pain worse than his Fall. Aziraphale! Where is Aziraphale?! He’s gone, burned, burned like everything else. Words, hopes, Aziraphale, burned and gone and forgotten._

“Crowley? My dear, are you alright?”

_Aziraphale. He’s here._

**Drip**

_Aziraphale, reading to him by candlelight. Aziraphale, gently sharing the words that had been stolen from him. The gentle glow of the flame illuminates his beautiful, soft, adoring face. Illuminating his eyes, like two small Earths, holding everything wonderful inside._

__

**Drip**

Aziraphale takes his hand. 

“Crowley? Are you alright?” he asks, his heavenly face etched in worry.

“Ngh?” 

“You were lost, you weren’t responding, my love,” he says anxiously, squeezing his partner’s hand, grounding him.

“Sorry, just, uh, lost myself,” Crowley mumbles, biting his lip.

He looks away from the candle’s mesmerizing halo. The wax continues melting, and he continues breathing, steadying with the lulling sound of the drips.

“You found me,” he tells Aziraphale, “you always do.”

The angel always finds him, and he always finds the angel. Aziraphale, his resolute, constant beacon of hope and love. He always finds his way home eventually. 

“I love you, Aziraphale,” he says clearly now, looking past the candle to the real source of warmth behind it. 

He’s warm, but not burning, and he’s home.


End file.
